I like the first one.. (plain black) - I would think there's got to be a sort of sticky, gel-type material that mark1 users could use to give the impression of molded plastic..
-mark

...proud to have one of the first Mark I units

Dude, I hope you have an alarm. Theft deterrence is limited to a blinking light. If someone gets in your car to steal stereo equip, dont you think thety will grab the pullout whatever and run? Steal first and ask questions later. The front of the Empeg is boring. Just a machined flat colored piece of polycarbonate. 4 buttons and 4 screws. This unit is an awesome device! Dont kill it with bad looks!

...proud to have one of the first Mark I units

Definitly nice looking. It's definitly a step in the direction of making the empeg front look like other car stereos. Or possibly more professional looking. I like the look now, but it can look better on the front. I definitly think the player needs it's name displayed on the front somehow.

Reg 1640, 6gb Blue empeg-car mark 1. SN 00359

Although the fourth one looks like the remnants of a long night of drinking, colour me impressed on the other three.

I think of some of the later images have gone overboard, though. Empeg seems to adhere to an elegant simplicity of design -- which has a beauty all of its own. The first three images adhere to that mode of thinking and might not be too far-fetched to be unrealistic.

I look forward to Rob and Hugo's feedback on the two-piece faceplate suggestion; it seems to have some potential as it solves a host of small aesthetic issues that people have mentioned and it probably doesn't have too many design impacts...

-- Bleys

"If you would judge, understand." -- Seneca

Tony,

Apolgoies, but I don't like it. Nice work though! (You definitely have too much time on your hands).

I think that the current 'look' gives the empeg (emma) a more refined and distinguished look. More like a high-class gentleman.

The plastic faceplate is a bit more 'biker' for me.

Just my 0.02.

Paul.

Paul Haigh, 6GB, Blue
Reg: 4120 - Serial 00254

I look forward to Rob and Hugo's feedback on the two-piece faceplate suggestion; it seems to have some potential as it solves a host of small aesthetic issues that people have mentioned and it probably doesn't have too many design impacts...

I dunno, after posting that picture, I've been thinking about it a bit. Sure, a two-piece design would work. But Hugo's probably already hashed through similar ideas, and much more carefully than we just did. Rob's original statement on the subject seemed to indicate that they had some options ready to implement if they chose to do it.

I'll bet that if they really wanted to make a molded face, it'd probably be much more cost-effective in the long run to create a proper one-piece unit from scratch instead of trying to modify the clear plastic panel's design to accept a snap-on addition. It's just that, being a Mk1 owner, I like the idea of being able to get the new display board and face when they become available, and a proper redesign would probably make the mounting points incompatible with my unit. Really, if you think about it, the only reason for a two-piece design would be to maintain Mk1 compatibility, and that's probably not something we should realistically expect.

And, as I've said before, I like the simplicity of the current Mk1 design just fine. I only drew up those pictures to help us visualize what a molded faceplate might look like.

And in any case, a molded face would probably push back the release of the Mk2's even further, and that's something that no one wants.

But what about Rob's original question: "How many of you would really like a stylish moulded front panel, how many wouldn't care and how many would prefer the current flat panel? Would it affect your decision to purchase a player?"

Now that we've seen one (admittedly pie-in-the-sky) idea of what it might look like, what would your (everyone's) answer to that question be?

My answer is: I would really like a stylish molded front panel. I am happy with my current unit, but I know that a stylish front panel would make it look more attractive to the general public. I like the plain, futuristic simplicity of the current one, but if both options were placed in front of me, I would choose the molded one over the flat one immediately.

It wouldn't affect my decision to purchase a player, but other people are a lot more superficial than I am. Many people buy things just for looks. Why else would companies like Blaupunkt and JVC be making gaudy units with colors so bright that they induce seizures when viewed for too long? My wife has a Nokia cellular phone which works on exactly that principle: It has a snap-on face that allows her to switch colors. It was a major selling point with her. She switches the colors to coordinate with her wardrobe. People buy cars based on looks rather than performance or economy. People buy furniture based on looks rather than comfort. Pagers come in bright, gaudy colors... pagers for goodness sake, something that was originally meant to hide in your pocket all the time. Oh, and have you looked at car amplifiers lately? They come in all sorts of bright, stylish colors to impress your friends or to show off at competitions. I just bought a subwoofer amplifier that's completely hidden away in my trunk, and yet its logo lights up in the neatest shade of electric blue. You can never see the logo, but if you could, it sure would be pretty. There's a new line of car speakers out that have bright red cones. It's not enough in the audio industry just to sound good any more, now you have to look good, too.

Actually, I think it's because, as a civilization, we've reached a stage of sophistication where the basic technology doesn't impress us like it used to. It's like Douglas Adams wrote:

The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why and Where phases. For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question "How can we eat?", the second by the question "Why do we eat?", and the third by the question "Where shall we have lunch?"

I think we've reached the third level when it comes to technology products.



-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.

A can confirm that the Mk.2 player has a handle that extends to 90 degrees.

The feedback in this thread is extremely useful, and may well have a direct effect on some important decisions being made at empeg right now. Thanks for your time, and please keep those opinions coming.

Rob

I must say I agree with Tony. I'm perfectly happy with the way the Empeg looks now, and it won't affect my purchase of the Mk II, but anything that makes the Empeg look better is okay by me. I don't think it's a bad thing to look like the mainstream (which I agree is getting funkier every day), even though we all know the Player is far beyond.
Jason

_~= Dearing =~_
"WAY too happy about having #99."

the Mk.2 player has a handle that extends to 90 degrees.

And there was much rejoicing!



-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.

So, just to be the first to ask the obvious question.....
Is there any chance of the new handle fitting the old model??
Just wondering... =)

Jazz
(List 112, S/N 00030, 4 gig blue)

Joy, great joy!

And the foldy did rejoice, joyfully oh joyfully ode. Great was the rejoicy-ode, and the rejoicy was greatiode.

The fingerlodes were freely, and weebled the fingers freely in the lode. Great joy!

No, it won't retrofit to a Mk.1 - it would do horrible things to the main board.

Rob

I disagree. Past a certain point, it doesn't really worry me what
it looks like. If empeg had a choice between spending time and money
making moulded faceplates, and (for example) making a nice API
for UI extensions, or just further improving the software generally,
I'd say "Damn the torpedoes". I mean, go for the software.

Richard.

Well, I, personally, would pay a bit extra for a stylish faceplate. Like Tony, I see nothing wrong with the existing look -- its simplicity is something I find elegant. I definately DO NOT want funky colours -- I'd prefer to adhere to the simplicity model that Empeg has defined so well, thus far.

The only faceplate issue that bugs me on the MK1 is its visibility in direct sunlight; the glare off it is intense enough that my passenger cannot see the visuals and I cannot see the display easily when I'm working with the unit. By and large this is due to how much plexiglass (or whatever it is) the light diffuses through. If the plexiglass existed only where it needed to, it'd be much less of a problem, but as it is now the plexiglass covers much more than just the display -- which is more plexi surface area that captures and diffuses light through the rest of itself.

-- Bleys

"If you would judge, understand." -- Seneca

Now if you can come up with a faux burlwood cover, it will blend in perfectly with the dash. :-)

You mean like this?



Sorry. Couldn't resist.



-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.

Eeeew.

-- Bleys

"If you would judge, understand." -- Seneca

You are a very bad man.

Corby
SN#320, 6-Gig Blue

I always hated radios with that plastic faux-wood grain look. actually not just radios.. anything with faux-wood.


But great work on your mock ups!


Empeg Kicks Ass
S/N 00203
http://www.iretro.com

I always hated radios with that plastic faux-wood grain look. actually not just radios.. anything with faux-wood.

Me, too. I just posted it as a joke (which Corby and Bleys got).

Oh, and as a punishment to Eternalsun for suggesting it.

-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.

OK, schofiel, who do you think you are? Charles Lutwidge Dodgson?

Say hello to Alice for me, and watch out for the Frumious Bandersnatch!

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

You know, it looks to me like you could make your own faceplate(s) to tfabris' concept and attach them to the existing faceplate with a non-destructive glue such as rubber cement or maybe even small Velcro patches.

If you went the Velcro method, you could make up a second faceplate out of a piece of dash trim gleaned from a wrecking yard that was just a solid plate that would effectively make the empeg invisible.

I guess I'm just getting old, or perhaps incurably stylistically-impaired... but I don't think the faux-woodgrain design looks that bad, particularly if you made the panel out of the exact same dash trim as the rest of the dash so the effect would be just the empeg display embedded mysteriously in the middle of an otherwise stock dashboard.

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

Naaah, Stanley Unwin - famous UK eccentric who invented his own gobbly-gook speech.

Glad to see you're back, sir! Where've you been, then?

The radio station(s) where I work just installed new automation system and the other traffic person (besides myself) quit. (All of the on-air signal for all four stations play through a computer -- all the music is encoded MP-2 on a single server (150 GB hard drive space, 256 MB RAM, dual 500 MHz Pentium III's running through fiber optic cabling at 100 megabit/sec on Windows NT, makes the best damn DOOM server you ever played on!) I have been working 15 hour days, haven't even checked my e-mail since last Thursday. Steep learning curve, and of course since it's different from what I'm used to, it can't possibly be any good. It's gonna be about another week before I have it all back together again.

So, feel sorry for me. I am certainly feeling sorry for myself!

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

You're the man! :-)

Calvin

That's because you're a jeep owner! Which means a nice coating of mud and oil would do just fine. ;-)

Calvin

I cant remember where I read that the screen is made up of polycarbonate, but if it is, it could be coated with a anti reflective coating to reduce the glare during the day. (Is there any glare?)

Sean

It's already has an anti-reflective coating.

The problem isn't usually reflection - it's the sun shining right through the panel and overwhelming the display itself.

We're making some advances with the Mk.2 that may improve this situation.

Rob

This implies that a simple polaroid filter sheet would help, since it it coming in through the panel, scattering and then reflecting back.

But wouldnt that cut back on the brightness of the screen?